From the only source of reliable Catholic news on net, Eye of the Tiber:

The largest cross-boarder Lefeverist smuggling tunnel to date was discovered in a midnight raid earlier today by Swiss Guards. The smugglers fled, abandoning contraband with a street value of over 3 million euros.

Smuggled goods found included pirated copies of “Teach Yourself Latin” software, DVD’s of “The Cardinal,” as well as thousands of copies of Familiaris Consortio and the Decrees of the Council of Trent.

Lead detective on the case Giovanni Verde told EOTT this morning that all of the items seized were street ready.

“From here they would have gone out and been available in the Vatican colleges and back rooms by sunrise,” noting that the tunnel terminated in a small subterranean chapel under one of the Vatican buildings. “See how the chapel is set up ad orientem? This is a site of a clandestine Tridentine Mass.”

Rumors have been circulating for years that undocumented Lefeverists were responsible for the countless tunnels undermining the Vatican since the early 1970’s. According to Verde, his goal is not simply taking down the powerful Lefeverist “cartel,” but also “the numerous groups inside the Vatican supporting them.”

Verde told reporters that he has been tracking a “shadowy figure” who is considered the true leader of the cartel.

“We only know him as “Denzinger,” but he is highly respected in some circles, and his writings are quoted like the Bible. It’s not a secret in the Vatican that the recently terminated the head of the CDF, Gerhard Cardinal Muller, was an admirer of Dezinger.

“It was clear for a number of years that the Cardinal had been Denzinger’s man inside the halls of the Vatican, and now we finally have hard evidence of a conspiracy. Denzinger’s influence over the CDF and the Church will finally be broken.”

6 Responses to PopeWatch: Denzinger

“Denzinger’s influence over the CDF and the Church will finally be broken.”
and Jesus Christ? What about Jesus Christ’s influence over the CDF? At the Lavabo the priest washes his hands. At the kiss of peace the priest shakes hands with everybody including Beelzebub before he returns to the abandoned Sacred Heart of Jesus on the altar. All people, the Church, are in the Sacred Heart of Jesus on the altar. So, WHY?

During the current Pontificate, PopeWatch has found comfort in this passage on the entry under Alexander VI at New Advent:

An impartial appreciation of the career of this extraordinary person must at once distinguish between the man and the office. “An imperfect setting”, says Dr. Pastor (op. cit., III, 475), “does not affect the intrinsic worth of the jewel, nor does the golden coin lose its value when it passes through impure hands. In so far as the priest is a public officer of a holy Church, a blameless life is expected from him, both because he is by his office the model of virtue to whom the laity look up, and because his life, when virtuous, inspires in onlookers respect for the society of which he is an ornament. But the treasures of the Church, her Divine character, her holiness, Divine revelation, the grace of God, spiritual authority, it is well known, are not dependent on the moral character of the agents and officers of the Church. The foremost of her priests cannot diminish by an iota the intrinsic value of the spiritual treasures confided to him.” There have been at all times wicked men in the ecclesiastical ranks. Our Lord foretold, as one of its severest trials, the presence in His Church not only of false brethren, but of rulers who would offend, by various forms of selfishness, both the children of the household and “those who are without”. Similarly, He compared His beloved spouse, the Church, to a threshing floor, on which fall both chaff and grain until the time of separation.

5 Responses to PopeWatch: Something to Keep in Mind

Keeping at prayer for him has been a worth while exercise. Unseen and hidden are the workings I trust will take place. Realized effects are the increased peace I behold from praying hard for him. Him being Pope Francis.

In God’s mercy he was given the opportunity, which he took, to confess sacramentally before he died. We should all pray that we be able to die in a state of grace. And be glad for those people who live horrible lives but repent and trust God’s love at the end. Maybe this poor pope can pray for us, the whole range of Catholics and Christians who are here and now in moral jeopardy.
As he relates to our current pope, I didn’t get any indication in the article that Alexander VI threatened the understanding of Catholic teaching??

An Evangelical minister who specializes in helping Christians facing persecution writes to the Pope:

August 3, 2017

Your Holiness,

I am writing to request a meeting between Catholic and Evangelical leaders from the United States at a place and time of your choosing. Though, I’m hoping we can meet quickly.

I speak for many Evangelicals when I say that we have looked upon your appointment with great gratitude to God and with great optimism for the new spirit that you have brought to the Catholic Church. Your commitment to the poor and to pastoral ministry and your efforts to build bridges and to spread the doctrine of mercy around the world have been a light and hope to us all.

As you know more than most, all of this has also come at a time of historic Christian persecution in more places than perhaps at any time in Christian history. Together, Catholics, Orthodox, Protestant, and Evangelical Christians throughout the entire world have shared – as you’ve said – “an ecumenism of blood.”

It’s in this moment of ongoing persecution, political division and global conflict that we have also witnessed efforts to divide Catholics and Evangelicals. We think it would be of great benefit to sit together and to discuss these things. Then, when we disagree we can do it within the context of friendship. Though, I’m sure we will find once again that we agree far more than we disagree, and we can work together with diligence on those areas of agreement.

I have to confess what prompted this request were articles published in the La Cattolica Civilitas recently and in the New York Times.

We feel like this conversation is an urgent one, and I will bring a half dozen or so of our denominational heads and significantly influential Evangelicals for our time together.

We would also like to use the time to meet with various other high level officials throughout the Vatican to find ways in which we can cooperate on matters of great concern to us all, especially as it relates to refugees, the poor and the persecuted.

I might add that when God put it on my heart to write you directly, I immediately reached out to a mutual friend of ours. He has recounted to me the warm experiences that he’s had with you, and they are what prompted me to write you, knowing that you would receive this letter in kindred spirits.

With all the respect in the world and with love for Christ’s Church and every corner of it, I’ll earnestly await your reply.

“nor prohibit the free exercise thereof…” The Catholic Church was not instituted by Christ to abrogate our innate human rights that become our civil rights when our God-given sovereign personhood institutes the state.
Is Pope Francis saying that to belong to HIS Catholic Church, citizens must forfeit their civil rights? NOT SO.

It would be smart for the Pope to have a sit-down with the Evangelicals so he could say he had an open mind, etc. Of course, this would undermine the true purpose of the letter which was to align himself with anti-religious elements in the U.S.such as the MSM, Democrats, and Academia.

Bishop José Luis Azuaje Ayala of Barinas, vice president of the Venezuelan bishops’ conference, speaks on the dire situation in Venezuela:

The representative of the bishops’ conference also addressed the Vatican-facilitated dialogue process that took place in Venezuela between the government and the opposition in 2016.

The bishop denounced the result, which, in his view, was “a feigned dialogue on the part of the government without any result.”

“Whenever this government has been at a disadvantage, it has asked to dialogue; but it is always the same script: dialogue is used to gain time and advance in the hegemonic project of totalitarianism and greater power of domination,” Bishop Azuaje stated.

“The Holy See has always been aware of what is happening in the country. Both Pope Francis and the Secretary of State, Cardinal Parolin, are well informed of the country’s problems. They have always been willing to mediate, and we thank them for that. But experiences teach. The failed dialogue from October to December has taught that governments like this should have something more than goodwill,” he said categorically.

He also explained that the Vatican “has reminded the government that to return to the table, they must meet what was agreed in October of last year, and recorded by Cardinal Parolin in the letter addressed to President Maduro on December 1, 2016.”

This agreement states that the government must commit to “setting an electoral calendar, the release of political prisoners, the opening of a humanitarian channel to let food and medicines enter the country, and return power to the National Assembly.”

In the bishop’s view, the real solution involves a “total change of government through general elections,” perhaps beginning with a “possible transitional national government.”

However, he noted that “we can not forget justice” because “there has been a lot of corruption and violence” and “those responsible for this can not be left uninvestigated.”

Regardless of how the political situation in Venezuela ends, however, Catholics must live and react to the crisis facing the country.

“A Catholic in the circumstances in which we live must be a permanent promoter of the common good, solidarity, and justice,” the bishop advised. “It is not a time of adornment, but of going to the essential, to what gives meaning to life.”

“We know that nothing will be easy when working for the good of the community, but Christians have a fundamental belief that the power of the Holy Spirit not only animates us, but enlightens us in walking the narrow way. It offers us challenges, but it gives us its strength, ” Bishop Azuaje said.

“I want to go to the extreme of saying that a Catholic can not bend to exclusionary policies, much less the voracious corruption that exists in the country, nor raise his hand to strike the dignity of anyone,” he added.

“A committed Catholic should demand justice and work for the people with the sole interest of developing processes that lead to greater human development,” the bishop urged.

4 Responses to PopeWatch: Venezuela Bishops

We have a situation developing that reeks of a coming martyrdom…as always, the blood from which is the real mortar that holds the faith together. God and God-loathing tyrants never make beautiful music together since one is always reading the wrong score.

Most Holy Virgin, Patroness of America, Our Lady Help of Christians please help our neighbors to the south and protect the United States from agents of destruction who wish to spread the errors of socialism and communism in our nation.

Events are quickly coming to a head in Venezuela, as Father de Souza at Crux tells us:

The Holy See declared itself on Friday against the brutal regime of Nicolas Maduro, capping an extraordinary few months of masterful maneuvering by the bishops of Venezuela. They have preserved the integrity of the Church’s witness in the face of a tyrant that has starved his people and refused to permit foreign aid to help them.

The statement of the Holy See’s Secretariat of State calls on Maduro to abandon his plans to hold a “constituent assembly” to rewrite the constitution in his favour. It calls again for human rights to be respected, and refers to earlier calls for political prisoners to be released and new elections to be held – which, presumably and hopefully – would lead to the end of Maduro’s regime.

Venezuela has been plunged into a lethal crisis by a communist government that has doubled down on totalitarian measures to tighten its grip on power. The collapse of petro-communism in Venezuela is now more severe than the Great Depression in the United States, or the economic decline of Russia after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

But it’s wrong to blame falling oil prices, which in any case have recently stabilized. There are no other petro-states in which the citizenry is without food or toilet paper, fleeing as refugees without papers because the government no longer has the capacity to print passports.

Venezuela has descended rapidly into starvation poverty because during the boom years the regime of Hugo Chavez ran up record debts to plug the holes in its failed, corrupt economic policies. Now under his successor, Nicolas Maduro, there is nothing left in the exchequer and little new borrowing to be had. The economic catastrophe has undermined the regime’s support, which is why Maduro has resorted to lethal violence, rampant thuggery and totalitarian measures to change the constitution to preserve his hold on power.

In the aftermath of Sunday’s vote for Maduro’s new constituent assembly – boycotted by the opposition – the government seized opposition leaders and continued its killing of protesters in the streets. The Venezuelan bishops stood with the opposition, and with the protesters. Indeed, one extraordinary photo shows Venezuelan priests facing armed government forces in the streets, pleading for them to allow medical care for a young man they had shot. The government forces let him die.

The country’s bishops made clear by name the cause of Venezuela’s agony, tweeting on Sunday a prayer to “free our homeland from the claws of communism and socialism.” It is not a matter of a clumsy bureaucracy, or of squabbling factions, or unfortunate economic shocks; Venezuela has been brought low by a failed ideology.

The Venezuelan Church now stands squarely in solidarity with the opposition and the people in the streets against the Maduro regime. In the weeks ahead, we might hope for something like the happy ending of the People Power revolution of 1986 in the Philippines, when the Filipino Church was at the forefront of the protests that brought down the regime of Ferdinand Marcos.

However matters play out in Venezuela, the leading bishops of the country have ensured that the Church’s witness will not be ambiguous. Even a few months ago, the role of the Church was confusing in Venezuela, with the astonishing phenomenon of Maduro repeatedly insisting that the bishops drop their opposition to him out of obedience to Pope Francis, who called repeatedly for dialogue but would not clearly criticize the Maduro regime, as he did yesterday.

Defenders of the previous papal strategy considered it an attempt to keep the lines of communication open, preserving the capacity of the Church to act as a mediator. Critics of the strategy thought it foolish to call for dialogue as between the predator and his prey, when the only path ahead for Venezuela was for Maduro and his socialist/communist regime to go.

Latin American strong men, once they have power, are not known for backing down.

No. When the going gets too tough, they get out of Dodge before the posse catches them. One recent one (Manuel Noriega) was ejected by the U.S. military. There haven’t been many since 1970 who lasted more than about a half-dozen years. Anastasio Somoza fils (12 years), Omar Torrijos (12 years), Juan Velasco Alvarado (8 years), Hugo Banzar (7 years), Augusto Pinochet (15 years, left voluntarily according to constitutional procedures), and Alfredo Stroessner (35 years). None of these lasted past 1990. Messrs Fujimori, Chavez, Correa, and Morales were electoral politicians, albeit abusive ones.

“Venezuela has descended rapidly into starvation poverty because during
the boom years the regime of Hugo Chavez ran up record debts to plug
the holes in its failed, corrupt economic policies.”

Hugo was plugging holes in a failed, corrupt economic policy he forced
onto his people– and like most socialist leaders, he was taking good care
of his own pocketbook at the same time. When he finally did Venezuela
a good turn and died, Chavez had a personal wealth estimated at $2 billion.
There’s likely even more squirreled away in secret overseas accounts. His
daughter Maria Gabriela is widely acknowledged to be the wealthiest
person in Venezuela today, with a fortune of about $4.2 billion. She has
holed up in the presidential palace, and refuses to move out. A large part
of her fortune came from cornering the market on importation of rice– a
staple of the diet of Venezuela’s people– and promptly hiking the price
80%. In Venezuela, she’s contemptuously referred to as “Reina del Arroz”.

I very much doubt that today’s ordinary Venezuelans have any more illusions
about either the true nature of socialism or the left’s supposed concern for
the poor. Would that this Pope would also look and learn.

Would it be OK if I ncross-posted this article to WriterBeat.com? There is no fee; I’m simply trying to add more content diversity for our community and I enjoyed reading your work. I’ll be sure to give you complete credit as the author. If “OK” please let me know via email.

Art Deco wrote, “No. When the going gets too tough, they get out of Dodge before the posse catches them.”

Response: where’s the posse for the Latin American strong man occupying the See of St. Peter?

Sorry, I can’t help myself, Art. Rhetorical question only. But yes, you have a valid point. These Caudillos as T. Shaw describes them are bullies at heart and bullies are usually cowards – they can’t face the music when it comes their way.

“The Holy See declared itself on Friday against the brutal regime of Nicolas Maduro, capping an extraordinary few months of masterful maneuvering by the bishops of Venezuela. They have preserved the integrity of the Church’s witness in the face of a tyrant that has starved his people and refused to permit foreign aid to help them.”

This is what it takes for Pope Francis to change his mind: thousands dead, mass starvation, pleading by his Bishops, murderous dictator. In part the blood of this situation is on Pope Francis hands. The Pope of mercy no less!

There’s a whole lot of ruin in the world and ordinarily I wouldn’t expect Francis to comment on much of it explicitly. What a traditionalist priest told me a dozen years ago is, I suspect, true: the Pope shouldn’t say too much. The task of elucidating doctrinal or moral points should be enough to consume his public utterances. What you notice though, is that this Pope yaps about everything and makes ill-judged utterances routinely. You notice when he doesn’t say something.

One might hope that Venezuela’s decision-making element and it’s populace will productively reflect on the experience of the last five decades and draw salutary conclusions (once the atrocious Maduro is out of the way).

These Caudillos as T. Shaw describes them are bullies at heart and bullies are usually cowards – they can’t face the music when it comes their way.

If you review the list above, you’ll notice that none of the military men appeared on the scene after 1973 (and Pinochet acted only consequent to extreme provocation and engineered a salutary restructuring of Chile’s political economy). As for the electoral politicians on the list, Maduro and Morales are the only one’s remaining. Morales’ background is in commercial agriculture, and that knowledge base seems to constrain him from the worst sort of economic atrocities.

From the only reliable source of Catholic news on the net, Eye of the Tiber:

It was announced today that the Swiss Guard’s uniform will be changed to a more modern hipster look.

Pontifical Swiss Guard Commandant Daniel Anrig told Guards gathered at the annual When Do We Get To See Some Action Jamboree that the traditional “uniform” worn by the Knights will be replaced so as to be more appealing to millennials.

Instead of the well-known European Renaissance-style uniform, the average member of the Swiss Guard will be wearing a pair of skinny jeans, a beanie, and a leather jacket “no matter how hot the temperature gets in Rome,” Anrig said. Anrig did not specify whether swords would be replaced with scarfs or whether they would be replaced with pens in case “the muse strikes and gives them the inspiration to write the next Infinite Jest.”

“I have decided that the time is right for a modernization of the Swiss Guard Uniform,” Anrig said. “From now on, along with skinny jeans, beanies, and leather jackets, the preferred dress for the Guard will include v-necks or flannel shirts, vintage sneakers, bow ties, and black squared frames for glasses whether Guards wear prescription glasses or not.”

Swiss Guard David Adank told EOTT via a shrug of the shoulders this morning that, though a little bit nervous and hesitant about the change, he welcomes it with open, sarcastic arms.

“Whatever,” Adank went on to say before departing to an undisclosed coffee shop.

Another member of the Swiss Guard, Toby Caspari, told EOTT that he was worried that he would be expelled from the Guard since he struggles growing a proper mustache.

“I guess it’s the mandatory mustache that I’m most afraid of,” Caspari said. “I’ve never really been able to grow one, and all everyone’s talking about is what type of “stache wax” to use. Whatever, maybe I’ll use a fake. I trust the commandant’s judgment. I think skinny jeans really helps to show a striking, imitative image of Christ because he was kind of a hipster in his own way. He too didn’t care what people thought. But at the same time, he wanted people to notice him, but at the same time not notice him, if you know what I’m saying. You know what I’m saying?

I responded to the announcement of this change with the following venting of the spleen on Facebook:

The US Navy tried this crap. Major changes to the enlisted sailor uniform uniform took place in 1973. There was a movement to have enlisted uniforms appear more “distinguished” and “modern.” The traditional uniform of bell bottoms, neckerchief and dixie cup hat were replaced with suits and ties and a police officer style hat that were more in line with CPO and officer regulations. The idea was to present the modern Navy as a unified force, but these changes were NOT taken well and were largely reversed by 1980. Today the enlisted sailor wears much what he did during WW II – bell bottoms, neckerchief and dixie cup.

Yes, a great many bad ideas we see in industry or the Church the US Navy has tried to implement at one time or another, in one way or another and it has abysmally failed, sometimes spectacularly. Rule of thumb: if it’s a bad idea, then the Navy already tried it. The change in uniform to modernize back in 73 is one example. Today’s allowing women on submarines (analogy – deaconettes and priestesses) is another and that innovation will eventually blow up in the Navy’s face (think about it – a women gets pregnant on a 3 month undersea voyage and her fetus is next to a live reactor core – utterly stupid). Another example is a bit more technical and related to my field of nuclear power.

The Navy wanted to get rid of the expense and maintenance of control rod drive mechanisms for nuclear reactors. So it built a reactor in Ballston Spa, NY called MARF without control rods (think barf, though the acronym stands for Modifications and Additions to a Reactor Facility!). Instead of neutron absorbing control rods, the reactor had gadolinium tubes in the core that would fill with water to make the gadolinium absorb neutrons and empty to allow neutrons to cause fission in uranium and make heat (and hence steam via the steam generators for the turbines). Damn thing was difficult as hell to bring critical – even slight water level changes in the tubes made wild reactivity swings. Bad. Very bad. The freaking piece of junk was thankfully never installed on any ship or submarine, though it still runs today (less than 20% of the time if that) for materials testing. Can you imagine doing angles and dangles on submarine maneuvers at a 1000 ft depth and having the reactor first shutdown and then go screaming into the power range uncontrollably all because water level in the tubes sloshes around? Another dumb a$$ idea the Navy wisely $h1t canned.

Well the story doesn’t stop there. Some commercial reactor designers today who want to be known innovative and at the ever piercing tip of the vanguard of pioneering advancement would likewise want to get rid of control rods in their designs and use just soluble neutron poison in the reactor coolant to control core reactivity. The Navy already tried getting rid of control rods and it doesn’t freaking work! Yes, albeit for different reasons that I won’t specify here, but I was a reactor operator (RO) and any RO worth his sea salt (especially he who stood watch at MARF in Ballston Spa) damn well knows it won’t work.

There is a reason for tradition. Sometimes solutions to the problems we have were already worked out by people smarter than us long ago.

Well, putting women on surface ships blew up in the Navy’s face when they started putting women on auxiliary ships like destroyer and submarine tenders. Instead of learning their lesson from that disaster, the Navy just built a bigger bomb by putting women on combatant ships.

To be sure, there are women who served well aboard ship, but I have spent enough time (five and a half years to be exact) serving aboard Navy ships to know that it is no place for a woman. Apparently, many women agree seeing as how many of them would deliberately get pregnant to get transferred to shore duty.

George Weigel at The Catholic Report notes that the powers that be at the Vatican are not noted for their competence:

On occasion, however, that can be a journey through the looking glass and into Wonderland.

Last month, Civilta Cattolicà featured an article co-authored by its editor-in-chief, Father Antonio Spadaro, SJ, and Pastor Marcelo Figueroa, who edits the Argentine edition of L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper. The article purported to analyze a startling “ecumenism of hate” in the United States, forged by ultra-conservative Catholics and evangelical Protestants, and creepy-dangerous for its indulgence in a new Manicheanism that distorts the Gospel and divides everything in the world into rigid and narrowly-defined categories of good and evil. This bizarre screed generated weeks of controversy in the blogosphere, during which Father Spadaro tweeted that the article’s critics were “haters” whose vitriol confirmed the article’s hypothesis – a Trumpian outburst ill-becoming a paladin of “dialogue.”

My friends and colleagues R.R. Reno, Robert Royal, and Fr. Raymond de Souza have ably replied to the comprehensive inanities of the Spadaro/Figueroa article: its ill-informed misrepresentation of American religious history; its surreal descriptions of 21st-century American Catholicism and evangelical Protestantism; its obsessions with marginal figures in contemporary American religious life like R.J. Rushdoony and Michael Voris; its misreading of the dynamics of religiously-informed public moral argument in American politics; and its weird description of the premises of current Vatican diplomacy, which will give comfort to the likes of Vladimir Putin, Raul Castro, and Nicolas Maduro. Those who care to sift through this intellectual dumpster can consult Dr. Reno’s article, Dr. Royal’s, and Fr. De Souza’s. The questions I’d like to raise here involve Civilta Cattolicà’s relationship to its putative overseers in the Vatican Secretariat of State.

What kind of vetting did this misbegotten article get? Were any knowledgeable experts on U.S. Catholicism or American evangelical Protestantism consulted on what the overseers must have known would be an incendiary piece? Does the Spadaro/Figueroa article really represent the views of the Secretariat of State about today’s debates at the intersection of religion and politics in the United States? If the answer to the last is “Yes,” then what does the Secretariat of State make of the American situation as described by the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, Archbishop Christoph Pierre, in his addresses to the U.S. bishops – a description that bears no resemblance to the wasteland of madcap pseudo-theology and hatred described by Spadaro and Figueroa? If the answer is “No,” then why was the Spadaro/Figueroa article cleared for publication?

8 Responses to PopeWatch: Sheer Incompetence

Now why in the world would the authors of that article consult experts on anything American? Does anyone really think Spadoro and Figueroa give a damn about accuracy or facts? For anyone who does think that, boy have I got a deal for you on oceanfront property in Kansas.

No, Francis is not known for his intellect. But you normally need at least one doctorate to be able to reach the level of ridiculousness Pope Francis does on a regular basis. And he has what, maybe a graduate degree at best?

LQC puts it best. Papa Bergoglio is a Peronist Marxist devoid of an intellect capable of critical thinking. Cardinal Burke was one of the authors of the Dubia. Cardinal Wuerl despises Cardinal Burke and Papa Bergoglio listens to Wuerl when he wants to.

Dividing everything into rigid categories of “good and evil” is now bad. Pope Francis eschews publically–those who see things in black and white, while JPII instructs us to call black, black, white, white, and to call sin, sin. It is the later category that bothers those who prefer the flexibility of the diabolical world of relativistic greys.

Manicheanism is wrong, but not because it makes a clear distinction between good and evil, but rather because it casts individuals as purely good or evil, effectively casting all human disputes as cosmic confrontations pure and faultless angels against wholly reprobate demons.

But it is unambiguously the Left that does this, casting anyone who doesn’t fit perfectly into their increasingly tiny misshapen mold as a “Nazi,” “racist,” “white nationalist,” “homophobe,” etc. And this has always been the case with the Left, which always divides people into groups of virtuous and faultless “victims” and their unremittingly evil “oppressors” who must be cast down.

“Father” Spadaro engaged in this Manicheanism himself, even while accusing others of it, by dismissing all of his critics out of hand as nothing more than “haters,” who allegedly driven by nothing more than pure unreasoning malice as they are, don’t even need to be debated or to have their arguments addressed.

” Don’t blame the minions and ignore their master.” Good point Donald for George Weigel to note. It would appear George needs a reality check (courage) in his evident inability (fear?) to describe who Pope Francis really is.

Amen to that, Michael Dowd. Weigel is probably afraid to offend the neo-cons who write his paychecks. It is beyond me how anyone who is actually paying attention (admittedly a very small minority) could fail to see the truth here.

The Spadaro-Figueroa American Catholic conservative bashing article came out two weeks ago, go here to read about it, but suddenly today it receives coverage all over the secular press. Is this merely an example of how slow the mainstream media generally is to cover Catholic news, or is this a ramping up of the Pope’s war, and let us be honest that is precisely the term that should be used, against American Catholic conservatives? Go here to look at some of the stories published today. The New York Times article is driving the coverage, and why did they suddenly decide to cover this now? For the present, American Catholic conservatives should assume that our enemies in the Vatican are working hand in glove with our domestic enemies.

8 Responses to Hmmm

Pope Francis is showing proof of Christ’s words: “The world will hate you as the world has hated me.” Pope Francis hates American Conservative Catholics as the world hates American Conservative Catholics. “then the earth opened up and swallowed the Golden Calf and all of the revelers.”

oh Donald McClarey you accidentally gave me a great chuckle– look at the tag you put at the end for “Spandero” ! just struck me funny as if he would dress in spandex in his forays into battle with us hateful Catholic true believers… Plus the picture of the pope – 🙂

I like it that Pope Francis is showing his true colors as a political figure. The more he does this the more his credibility as a religious leader suffers. Also, the more he does this the more he opens himself to attack for his politics. His sheep’s clothing is giving him less cover.

Can it possibly be true that Vatican officials are lobbing curses at a White House aide with nebulous responsibilities? Did anyone in John Paul’s camarilla know or care who Ed Meese was? Is the Holy See trying to tell us they are hopelessly overstaffed?

Anzlyne-
That’s rather how I am; they both flow from my world-view, my philosophy.
Difference between politics and religion is that religion forms my idea of “should be,” while politics is an expression of “how can we work towards that.”

Hattip to commenter Greg Mockeridge. Edward Pentin at National Catholic Register reminds us of just how far we have fallen:

The decision to have the notorious abortionist Emma Bonino speak about immigration in an Italian church last week drew widespread condemnation.

But it also led some to argue, including the local Caritas representative who sponsored her talk, that Bonino’s atrocious abortion record, of which she has never repented, could be set aside to focus on this other aspect of Catholic Social Teaching.

Yet effectively sidelining the gravity of abortion in favor of bringing a radical secularist to form a common front on immigration perhaps signifies how much the West, and some in the Church, have become numb to abortion and the gravity of the sin.

St. Padre Pio, for example, believed abortion was not just the murder of an innocent human being, but also a true suicide.

In a now famous story, Father Pellegrino Funicelli, who assisted Padre Pio for many years, once confronted the saint on the sin, asking him:

“Today you denied absolution to a woman because she had voluntarily undergone an abortion. Why have you been so rigorous with this poor unfortunate?” (Padre Pio would sometimes refuse to give absolution to a penitent if they showed insufficient contrition; often they would return and he’d give absolution if they were sincere).

Padre Pio responded: “The day that people lose their horror for abortion will be the most terrible day for humanity. Abortion is not only a homicide but also a suicide. Shouldn’t we have the courage to manifest our faith before those who commit two crimes within one act?

“Suicide?,” asked Father Pellegrino.

“The suicide of the human race will be understood by those who will see the earth populated by the elderly and depopulated of children: burnt as a desert,” Padre Pio replied.

Bonino, who boasts of performing more than 10,000 abortions in 1975, vacuuming the unborn child from the womb with a bicycle pump and putting the mangled remains into a glass jar, ironically noted in her talk the population decline in Italy.

14 Responses to PopeWatch: Padre Pio

Add genocide. A mass homicide IS the adoption of killing human beings for a greater good. This adoption of act being a form of social justice in this culture is most definitely a sign of suicide for a people, a nation.

St. Mother Teresa: “Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want.”

This form of violence is worse than murder because it teaches the generations to come that regardless of the act, the ends do justify the means.

God help us.
Saint Pio, Pray hard for US.
You, ambassador for Christ, get to the abortion clinic and pray the rosary for the end of a national suicidal pact….the liberial / feminist progressive mindset.

“The day that people lose their horror for abortion will be the most terrible day for humanity”
Such perfect understanding of the evil of abortion. How possibly could any apostle of Christ call the opposing of such evil, “an obsession”?
One has to wonder if in Rome, the seat of God’s holy Church, truth matters anymore.

“One person cannot own another person” Abraham Lincoln.
Scientific DNA tells us that the newly begotten innocent soul is another person., not a “rabbity” person but a child of God whom the Pope must acknowledge. Damn the Pope’s evil excesses. Damn the Pope’s evil bullying imposing atheism on the world. Damn the Pope’s unbridled ignorance.

The unholy logic is this: Humanae Vitae cannot be preached (the very idea that married persons are capable of abstaining for 10-14 days of fertility is absurd, so say celibate male clergy..), therefore widespread contraception by persons who profess to be catholic will continue and therefore in general society also, therein since widespread contraception is at the very root of abortion, abortion is also a “necessary” evil.

I’m sure that if Emma Bonino was an unrepentant nazi or an enthusiastic
advocate for pedophilia, then Caritas would never dream of sponsoring
her talk on immigration in a Catholic church. But she’s neither of those,
she’s “just” a notorious, unrepentant, enthusiastic advocate for abortion.
No big deal, apparently. /sarc.

The chastisement begin’s in and of the Church. 17For the time is, that judgment should begin at the house of God. And if first at us, what shall be the end of them that believe not the gospel of God? 18And if the just man shall scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? 19Wherefore let them also that suffer according to the will of God, commend their souls in good deeds to the faithful Creator.

“have become numb to abortion and the gravity of the sin….”
What human beings have become numb to is the joy of chaste sex, the joy of knowing sacrifice of true love, the reality of God. Absent true love, individuals settle for the scab culture of dehumanized beings, the denial of God, the celebration of sin and debouchery. God gave us the Ten Commandments because He loves us. The devil smogs over our minds with inuendos and swindles. Remember: Satan promised Adam and Eve that they would become like God if they ate the forbidden fruit, which was the forbidden fruit. Adam and Eve were created in the image of God Adam and Eve were like God. Satan promised Adam and Eve something that they already had and the devil did not have to give. That is called a swindle.
Why is it that contraceptive love or fornication never satisfies, even abortion never solves anything but creates more chaos. One woman had 35 abortions to “save her life” Mindless. Let us say that people have already slipped into insanity since abolishing the presence of God in their midst and establishing atheism as the center of truth. God WHO is TRUTH.

“Bonino, who boasts of performing more than 10,000 abortions in 1975, vacuuming the unborn child from the womb with a bicycle pump and putting the mangled remains into a glass jar, ironically noted in her talk the population decline in Italy.”

What cognitive dissonance! Can’t these people – such believes in science and reason – think through the logical consequences of their murderous policies and programs?

The dogma of the IMMACULATE CONCEPTION is being undercut by the apparitions at Medjugore. The IMMACULATE CONCEPTION is the Mother of all newly begotten innocent souls infused into the human body at fertilization and conception. The rational soul is the breath of life. Scientific DNA proves individuality at fertilization.
The dogma of the IMMACULATE CONCEPTION promulgated in 1850 is celebrated on December 8th in the Catholic Church. Therefore, Our Lady’s birthday is celebrated on September 8th, nine months later, in the same way that the ANNUNCIATION is celebrated on March 25th and the birth of Jesus is celebrated on December 25th.
The apparition at Medjugore tells people that Our Lady’s birthday is August 5th, so that Our Lady’s IMMACULATE CONCEPTION occurred on November 5th. Still the teaching authority of the Catholic Church is being obliterated by this apparition.
The statue of Medjugore has no breasts and the feet are covered by a cloud.
The chief exorcist of the Vatican, Malachi Martin RIP said that the apparitions at Medjugore are a satanic hoax. Our Lady’s feet were shown at Fatima, Lourdes, Akita, Garabendel every time. Now here NO.
Atheism is a religious belief in the non-existence of The Supreme Sovereign Being, God, in the non-existence of the rational transcendent soul and in the innate, unalienable human rights inhering in mankind’s immortal soul. Satan is no atheist.
Abortion, genocide and mass murder result from the rejection of the existence of The Supreme Sovereign Being, God, and mankind’s transcendent breath of life.
Abolishing the dogma of THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION by destroying the church teaching on the IMMACULATE CONCEPTION destroys the Church teaching on the sanctity and sacredness of human life from conception at fertilization to natural death, when the breath of life, the human soul, leaves the body.

An atheist philosopher friend of Benedict XVI has strongly criticized Pope Francis, accusing the Holy Father of not preaching the Gospel but politics, fomenting schism, and issuing secularist statements aimed at destroying the West.

In a fiery interview published July 10 in Mattino di Napoli, Marcello Pera, who co-wrote the famous 2005 book Without Roots with then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, said he cannot understand the Pope who, he said, goes beyond the bounds of “rational comprehension.”

A philosophy professor, member of Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party, and a former president of the Italian Senate, Pera said he believes the reason why the Pope calls for unlimited immigration is because he “hates the West” and is seeking to do all he can “to destroy it.”

He added that he does not like the Pope’s magisterium, saying it is “not the Gospel, only politics,” and that Francis is “little or not at all interested in Christianity as doctrine, in its theological aspect.”

“His statements appear to be based on Scripture,” he said, but “actually they are strongly secularist.”

Immigration has become a highly sensitive topic in Italy in recent months as thousands of refugees arrive every month, mostly from north Africa, placing considerable strain on local communities and services.

7 Responses to PopeWatch: Clear Sighted Atheist

If a philosopher cannot understand the pope (our guardian of the faith) how ever can we little people (whose precious souls are always up for grabs) ever know the faith as handed down by the Apostles.?

Bergoglio’s background explains all. Many Argentines hate the United States. The US is powerful and wealthy and has clout in world politics. Argentina has the tango and churrasco and hid Nazis. The US is the West.
It is important to note that not all of Latin America is as screwed up as Argentina, though Cuba is worse and Venezuela is headed there.
The Pontiff is who the likes of the German cardinals and Daneels wanted. The garbage they want to pull is out in the open.

War criminals hid out in Latin America because Latin America has weak and corruptible institutions and their governments are not invested in settling old scores derived from European wars. The Southern Cone is attractive because it’s comparatively affluent, has a large mass of people of non-Iberian origin, and the effects of chain-migration. (Recall that Paraguay was accused of harboring Joseph Mengele; it turned out later that he’d only spent two years there).

It is important to note that not all of Latin America is as screwed up as Argentina, though Cuba is worse and Venezuela is headed there.

Argentina is one of the most affluent Latin American countries. The problem with Argentina is that from about 1928 to about 1983, it was a country which did less with more. None of the Southern Cone countries have re-acquired the relative position they occupied in the 1920s, when they were (by contemporaneous standards) 1st world.

Pera: Francis is “little or not at all interested in Christianity as doctrine…His statements appear to be based on Scripture,” he said, but “actually they are strongly secularist.”

T’would be best for the august Holy Father not to try to get over on an atheist about his true agenda.

….

I was longing for the day when we had popes, real popes, men of Catholic Faith, when I was reminded in today’s Traditional Catholic liturgical calendar on the feast day of S. Alphonsus Liguori. So impressed was the Benedictine Pope Pius VII with S. Alphonsus’ profound spiritual teaching and doctrine that according to Dom. Gaspar Lefebvre OSB, the great historian and liturgist, recounts that on S. Alphonsus’ death in 1787, “P. Pius VII commanded [S. Alphonsus’] 3 fingers of his right hand to be sent to Rome, pronouncing, “Let them come to Rome, those holy fingers which have written so well for the Glory of God, of Mary, and of religion.”

That was when we had a pope who actually cared about the teachings of the Catholic Faith on the glories of God, Mary, and Catholic doctrine—and few expressed those more beautifully, and clearly, than S. Alphonsus.

The first is an Italian and a Jesuit, director of “La Civiltà Cattolica.” The others are Argentine, and the latter is not even Catholic but a Presbyterian pastor, and in spite of this Francis has put him at the head of the Buenos Aires edition of “L’Osservatore Romano.”

Spadaro has turned “La Civiltà Cattolica” into the organ of Casa Santa Marta, meaning of the pope. And together with Figueroa he put his name to an article in the latest issue of the magazine that slammed into the United States like a hurricane, because it accused both Catholic and Protestant conservative circles of acting in that country “with a logic not different from that which inspires Islamic fundamentalism,” none less than that of Osama bin Laden and the Caliphate.

And on what are these Catholics and Protestants supposed to have come together to fight as “neo-Crusaders”? On “issues like abortion, same-sex marriage, religious education in the schools,” in other words, on “a particular form of defense of religious freedom.” With the result – according to the two authors of the article – of fomenting an “ecumenism of hatred,” nostalgia for “a state with theocratic features.” The exact opposite of the ecumenism of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, a pope “of inclusion, peace, encounter.”

The trouble is that the defense of life, of the family, of religious freedom have been at the forefront of the American Catholic Church’s agenda for more than a decade. It therefore could not help but react at seeing that “believers are attacked by their co-religionists merely for fighting for what their Churches have always held to be true.”

The highest-level protest came from the archbishop of Philadelphia, Charles Chaput, who rejected the article by Spadaro and Figueroa as “an exercise in dumbing down and inadequate.” But other comments have been much harsher and have had an easy time pointing out a series of colossal historical and logical blunders in the article.

Any other magazine would have tossed out such an article, the Canadian Raymond J. de Souza for example wrote on “Crux,” the most important and balanced website of Catholic information in the United States.

But at Santa Marta, on Francis’s desk, it didn’t end up that way, and on the contrary the article by Spadaro and Figueroa was passed with full marks and made an even bigger splash in that it was correctly interpreted by everyone as expressive not only of the pope’s thoughts but also of his management style: in this case, an attack of unprecedented forcefulness on the “Ratzingerian” leadership of the Catholic Church in the United States, launched through middlemen.

In the doctrinal camp Fr. Spadaro is fairly nonchalant, theorizing that “in theology 2 + 2 can make 5,” and is infallible in prognosticating Bergoglio’s revolutions big and small. But among the counselors and confidants is one who is even closer to the pope than he is. And it is none other than the Argentine Víctor Manuel Fernández, a theologian whose first and revealing work was, in 1995, a volume entitled: “Heal me with your mouth. The art of kissing.”

It comes as no surprise that after this debut and after his other no less questionable literary productions Rome would veto Fernández’s appointment as rector of the Universidad Católica Argentina, only to have to bend, in 2009, to the then-archbishop of Buenos Aires, who fought tooth and nail to get the nulla osta for the promotion of his protege.

In 2013, just after he was elected pope, Bergoglio even made Fernández an archbishop. And since then this figure has almost spent more time in Rome than in Argentina, swamped as he is with acting as counselor and ghostwriter for his friend the pope.

Whole paragraphs of chapter eight of “Amoris Laetitia,” the document of Pope Francis that has most shaken the Church, have been found to have been copied wholesale from articles by Fernández of a decade ago.

Another occasion for a sigh and an eye roll. This papacy cannot end too soon. Here’s a question: if Benedict actually was blackmailed into abdicating (by threats to his brother), was Francis election valid? And if it was not, are not some of the cardinal-electors imposters? And if much of the college consists of imposters, what counts as a valid election of a successor?

Ernst & c matt: I’m with you– if even Crux, “the most balanced and
important website of Catholic information in the US” (only in their dreams)
pans that LCC article, then it must truly reek. I actually laughed out loud
when I read that “balanced and important” line.

It seems that the site Messa in latino picked up on an anecdote recounted by a French site Benoit etmoi. Here’s my translation from the French, which seems to be the original of the anecdote. I’m cutting out the first part, just to get at the core of the anecdote itself. Mind you, we are dealing with something that happened recently, after this spring or early summers traditional round of diocesan ordinations to the priesthood. However, we are also dealing with something that it second hand at best.

A group of young priests from the same diocese, who were just ordained, made a pilgrimage together to Rome. They were not traditionalists, but young priests of today, white shirt with discreet collar, [in some European countries you will see during the summer priests in a white clerical shirt with “tab” collar] classic, pious, normal, very happy with the gift of Christ they had just received. Naturally, they asked and obtained (the chance) to have dinner at Santa Marta and to be presented to the Pope, and also to concelebrate with him at Mass the next day.

They arrived at Santa Marta at the designated time, and went to the place indicated. A secretary pointed them out to the Pope who was approaching. The Pope: “Where are you from?” They, proudly: “Of the Diocese of X”. And he, with a sour expression [avec la mine des mauvais jours]: “Ah, X, there are still many priests there. That means that there is a problem, a problem of discernment.” And he continues his journey.

The young priests, dismayed, looked at each other, conferred, and left without eating. And the next day, they spared themselves the concelebration at Santa Marta.

Okay… what to do with this. And, mind you, I’m doing this here because I’ve had a lot of requests.

It could be that these young men mistook the Pope’s expression. Some people’s default face isn’t always cheerful looking.

It could be that these young men mistook the Pope’s words. There could be a language difference.

However, since there were a few of them, they probably were not all mistaken in their interpretation and it drove them to leave and not come back.

Popes kid around with seminarians and priests. John Paul II sure did. Here is one of my own anecdotes with John Paul. I’ve never told this one here before.

Since my seminary in Rome was named after JPII, we seminarians were often called to serve his Masses. Hence, I had quite a few opportunities as a seminarian and as a deacon. I was a deacon often enough that the Holy Father got to know me. One day, as deacon, I brought the thurible into the small sacristy tucked away near the altar of the Pietà (they laid our our dalmatics, etc., on the altar beneath the Pietà – that wasn’t cool or anything…) for the Pope, as celebrant, to “charge”. As I approached he said in Italian, “You again!” As I held it up he said, “Which seminary are you from?” Of course he knew. He asked every time. “The John Paul the Second International Seminary, Your Holiness.” With clearly mock dismay, he almost bellowed, “Terribile! Terribile!” Everyone was amused, including myself. Then he became very grave. Leaning in almost nose to nose, he repeatedly pounded me hard on the chest with his finger and said, punctuating every word, “Tu… deve essere serio. You… have to be serious.” “Serio” means “serious”, but also “focused, earnest”.

That experience was a little frightening, to be frank. First, that was the POPE. Also, that was Pope Wojtyla. It is a bit cliché to speak of what it felt like when he came into a room, but I guarantee you he was like no one else I’ve seen. Seeing him come in or meeting him briefly is one thing. Having him pound you repeatedly on the chest nose to nose is another.

Clearly the saint was trying in an extremely personal moment to inspire a man to something more than mediocrity. After all, my seminary had his name. Ergo, we reflected him, in a way. We had to live up to that.

Let’s just say that I have not forgotten that moment.

It could be that Pope Francis was trying to do something similar with these young priests, but missed the mark.

11 Responses to PopeWatch: Humor?

Your recollection reminded me of a funny story Rick Santorum told at a conference I attended many years ago. He and his family had been selected to attend a Mass or to get to meet Pope St. John Paul II. He mistakenly thought it had to do with his being a Senator (at that time). When they were introduced or when the Pope was passing them, he looked at the Senator and his family and said, “You very important man.” Rick Santorum shyly agreed saying, “Yes…” but was interrupted when the Pope pointed his finger and touched Rick’s upper chest. Rick replied, “…uh, why Ye…” when the Pope pounded his finger into Rick’s upper chest, and repeated, “YOU VERY IMPORTANT MAN.” Not knowing if he should get angry, he realized the Pope was greeting his family with smiles and warmth. The Pope had no idea he was a Senator, but could clearly see he was a husband and father.

The problem here is that Pope Francis has a history of giving people insults. There is a web site called “The Pope Francis Little Book of Insults” dedicated to listing them. The Pope has a history of giving people the Prophet Jeremiah treatment.

“I will confess to having a pessimistic view of our current pope, but do stories like this possess any value?”
Holy Scripture is very badly translated at some places, calling God a “which” or a “that”. God is a “WHO” All sovereign persons are “WHO”. If Holy Scripture can be misunderstood and badly translated, why cannot Popes be badly misinterpreted?

“The young priests, dismayed, looked at each other, conferred, and left without eating. And the next day, they spared themselves the concelebration at Santa Marta.”
Who am I to judge?
If the effect was indeed “this”, then it was poorly said.

“Ah, X, there are still many priests there. That means that there is a problem, a problem of discernment.”

There are only 2 possible positive spins on this (or rather one and a half)
1) Diocese X should start renting them out to other dioceses, or even to missionary country (but it’s getting to the point there is little difference)
2) The Pope thinks ‘too many’ priests mean too many bad priests.

If there are any other possibilities they are bad indeed. One additional thought: the young priests should have steeled themselves and gone to the concelebration. At best they would have gained more clarity.

If a character-reference regarding this Pope is needed, to indirectly corroborate the story of these young newly ordained, all one need merely point out to you are the documented comments of the now-deposed Cardinal Muller. It is entirely in character with this man’s (Bergoglio’s) otherwise often loutish behavior.

From the only reliable source of Catholic news on the net, Eye of the Tiber:

Total catechism student loan debt in the U.S. has officially topped $1.8 hundred dollars.

In March, the Francis administration announced a series of changes to the Free Application For Federal Catechism Aid (FAFCA), the form for prospective catechists applying for church financial aid.

This measure was taken in the hopes of making the burden of learning the fundamentals of Catholicism more manageable. EOTT has found in a recent study that cradle Catholics ages 30 to 55 owe nearly as much money on past catechism classes as do converts to Catholicism even after years of payments, and that loan payments have become a major portion of their monthly expenses, crippling many households.

Head RCIA financial aid expert Devin Bolero recently told EOTT that more than 37% of borrowers are graduating with debt that can take them days if not weeks to pay off, significantly impacting their lives.

“I found that new Catholics who graduate with catechism debt are about 17% more likely to wait an extra week to pay off their debt before getting married and having kids,” Bolero said. “It’s an issue the USCCB seriously needs to look into.”

As critic’s of the Vatican have suggested in the past, Rome should sell off some of her treasures…in this case sell the Hammer & Sickle crucifix to relieve some of the horrible catechism debt. Oh..and that red statue of Martin Luther…SELL IT! Please.

$0.00 hourly wage is somewhat extravagant. You should probably pay the diocese a fee for your time.
🙂

Sadly not joking, one of the parishes in our area charges $40s and requires six weeks of two nights a week classes to be certified– for three years– to teach. (but if you register early, you can get it for only $30!)

This came up because my cousin, who goes to that parish, mentioned that they are also very short of the number of teachers they need….

They don’t say what the classes are about, but from looking at it– it’s got little to do with the binding teachings of Catholicism, although some could go both ways. (“Who is Jesus in the 21st century?”)

Correction, that’s to have done the Christian Formation Program; the three-year certificate is only $20, and four weeks…on one of the current Pope’s letters, either Misericordia et Misera or Amoris Laetitia.

To be a ministry volunteer (lector or Eucharistic minister) is thirty bucks and five weeks, although to renew is only a twenty and either one or two weeks. (term not stated)

In order to be a member of a Catholic homeschool group in that area, you are required to be certified through Virtusonline.org. (Which is not TOO bad, it’s one class and the price varies, and it’s basically a “how to recognize predatory behaviors” that lines up surprisingly well with the good anti-terrorism training I got, but….)

Over at First Things I saw a piece called Five Myths About Pope Francis by William Doino Jr.

What are those myths?

1. “Francis is the anti-Benedict.” 2. “Francis is Not a Cultural Warrior.” 3. “Francis is a ‘Social Justice’ Pope.” 4. “Francis Will Be More Charitable Toward Dissenters.” 5. “Francis Loves the World.”

I think it would be interesting to reread the article in question and see how things are going now…. with some perspective.

I think the general disposition was to hope the early warning signs were not what they seemed. Rorate Caeli called it immediately. I seem to recall Steve Skojec making a fairly astringent early appraisal.

My first impressions, before catching a glimpse of him, were “Argentine . . . Jesuit . . . that’s two strikes already.” Upon actually seeing him for the first time, it did not improve things. There was just something about his visage, look, demeanor, that you couldn’t quite articulate, but is did not sit well. Time just confirmed those impressions.

WhenI heard the news that an Argentine Jesuit became Pope, I feared for the worst. My wife was “educated” by Colombian Jesuits.
Had Cardinal Castrion Hoyos been elected thongs would have been a lot better.

1. “Francis is the anti-Benedict.”
Not sure what this means – in some ways, yes, in others, no – BXVI was just a more cautious, slow moving version of Francis – both are true sons of V II – although Benedict seems more accomodating to those of Traditional tendencies.
2. “Francis is Not a Cultural Warrior.”
This is confusing – I think it is a myth – he is a cultural warrior, but on the wrong side in many cases.
3. “Francis is a ‘Social Justice’ Pope.”
He is definitely an SJW, so this myth is true, or it is not a myth?
4. “Francis Will Be More Charitable Toward Dissenters.”
He definitely is, not just charitable, but outright enthusiastic for them – except for the ones who dissent from him. In that sense, it is a complete myth.
5. “Francis Loves the World.”
Not a myth at all – he totally loves the world and constantly seeks to please it and obtain its accolades.

1. “Francis is the anti-Benedict.”
Answer: True. That’s why he was elected.
2. “Francis is Not a Cultural Warrior.”
Answer: False. Francis is a Cultural Marxist sowing division and hate.
3. “Francis is a ‘Social Justice’ Pope.”
Answer: True. Francis is a Cultural Marxist sowing division and hate.
4. “Francis Will Be More Charitable Toward Dissenters.”
Answer: False. Francis is a malevolent and Machiavellian dictator
5. “Francis Loves the World.”
Answer: False. He only loves that part of the world–the evil part–that agrees with him.

Sources inside the Vatican suggest that Pope Francis aims to end Pope Benedict XVI’s universal permission for priests to say the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM), also known as the Extraordinary Form of the Mass. While the course of action would be in tune with Pope Francis’ repeatedly expressed disdain for the TLM especially among young people, there has been no open discussion of it to date.

Sources in Rome told LifeSite last week that liberal prelates inside the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith were overheard discussing a plan ascribed to the Pope to do away with Pope Benedict’s famous document that gave priests freedom to offer the ancient rite of the Mass.

Catholic traditionalists have just celebrated the tenth anniversary of the document, Summorum Pontificum. Pope Benedict XVI issued it in 2007, giving all Latin Rite priests permission to offer the TLM without seeking permission of their bishops, undoing a restriction placed on priests after the Second Vatican Council.

The motu proprio outraged liberal bishops as it stripped them of the power to forbid the TLM, as many did. Previously priests needed their bishop’s permission to offer the TLM.

Father of Seven, there are countless bishops, priests and other functionaries who hate the Mass of the Ages. To them it is a step backwards or a relic that belongs on a shelf in a catacomb. The TLM is seen as a stumbling block to ecumenism. Well, it is, and so much the better for it.

also- Mark 4:22 “For whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed, and whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out into the open.”
I think that applies to some of those “accidental” open mike occurrences, and to people allowing themselves to be overheard.

Pope Francis’ disdain for the traditional Latin Mass is well-known, and was well-known during his tenure as Cardinal Archbishop of Buenos Aires. It would be a reasonably likely next step for his pontificate to suppress SP, regardless.

In so doing, he would be completely energizing the SSPX, as well as the various sedevacantist groups and their orders, but also effectively channeling the many young people who now attend the traditional Latin Mass into the alternative [traditional] Catholic Church.

Pope Francis behaves as though the Latin Mass is not a real Mass. Luther believed that if the communicant did not believe in the Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist, Jesus was not there in spite of the transubstantiation by the priest.
Who is next? The Maronite Rite?, the Byzantine Rite?.

Hmm. Latin Mass or NO Mass. Latin Mass, or no Mass.
Yeah I’ve pretty much had it with this Jesuit nightmare driving a huge, unnecessary wedge between traditional and modern Catholics. Go ahead, Francis, run it into the ground.

If I had my way and was in charge, then Mass would be said in only Hebrew, Aramaic, Coptic, Koine Greek, Latin or Old Church Slavonic. If people didn’t like that, then I would invite them to go join the We – pi$$ – in – the – pail – ians.

But God in His infinite wisdom will never ever let me be in charge. Neither will my Filipina wife.

Sandro Magister publishes this from a source he describes as “an authoritative Churchman”:

*

EVERYONE IS RESPONDING TO THE “DUBIA” EXCEPT FOR THE POPE. THIS TIME IT WAS SCHÖNBORN’S TURN

by ***

On July 13, 2017 Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, archbishop of Vienna, spoke for four hours in two conferences and a question-and-answer session at Mary Immaculate College in Limerick, Ireland.

The Austrian cardinal spoke in the context of the event “Let’s Talk Family: Let’s Be Family,” which is part of a series of assemblies organized in preparation for the world meeting of families (1), under the direction of the dicastery for the laity, family, and life, which will be held in Dublin from August 21 to 28, 2018.

After reading the reporting on the event offered by the main specialized media outlets (2), I cannot help but note that when it comes to the “dubia” submitted to the pope by four cardinals, everyone is answering them except for him; and that in this way to the chaotic chorus of the most disparate comments and interpretations of “Amoris Laetitia” – which do anything but clarify for the faithful and confessors the problems raised by the document – there has been added a new voice, or better, a new fog.

This because the arguments offered by the archbishop of Vienna – at least according to how they have been reported by the most reliable media – are anything but convincing. Let’s take a look at the main ones.

Can Schonborn go to hell for any soul? Schonborn removed the exercise of Capital punishment for homicide in the first degree from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Two years later the Catechism had to be revised returning capital punishment for homicide in the first degree..
Priests make their conscientious objection known when they leave the political state for the service of God as ordained ministers of the Catholic Church. The Principle of separation of church and state makes itself known here, in that men of the cloth do not partake of the death penalty.
The priesthood of the laity does not have that authority from the church to partake of the ministerial priesthood.
Conscientious objection is a personal choice made individually by the sovereignty of every person.
This has escaped Schonborn and Francis who impose their morality or rather immorality on individual persons under the guise of Faith from Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit.
“If thou be perfect come follow me.” Jesus Christ is a virgin. Married folks must practice chastity and avoid the vice of lust in their marriage bed. Married folks must pick up their cross, whatever it be, and follow Jesus Christ into heavenly joy.
Defending the immorality of falsehood leads the faithful into perdition. Schonborn is defending the path into perdition.

“It is misguided if, against the Catholic doctrine of justification, the doors should be opened – albeit in other terms – for invincible concupiscence of a Jansenist flavour…”

It is, perhaps, worth recalling the first of the famous Five Propositions of Jansenism condemned in the bull Cum Occasione of Innocent X in 1653: “Some of God’s precepts are impossible to the just, who wish and strive to keep them, according to the present powers which they have; the grace, by which they are made possible, is also wanting” – Declared and condemned as rash, impious, blasphemous, condemned by anathema, and heretical.”

Most theologians consider this an infallible exercise of the extraordinary Magisterium. Anathemata are rare in papal documents; they are commonly found in the canons of general councils.